


Keep Breathing

by CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)



Category: Half Life Trilogy - Sally Green
Genre: Fix-It, Fuck you canon, M/M, it was all a dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 04:43:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6409309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/pseuds/CountlessUntruths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fix it fic for Half Lost. If you haven't read the last book and don't want spoilers, don't read this. </p><p>Nathan wakes up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Breathing

I gasp as I wake up, sitting up, asping, trying to breathe-- I'm choking, tears in my eyes, and I can't breathe at all, can't--

A hand on my back, the other one on my chest. Gabriel's voice, sleep-rough but there.

"Slow down. You can breathe. Try to breathe with me," and he takes a deep, slow breath and I do my best to do as he does. He exhales and I do it too. It takes a few more tries before I can do it properly, and when I'm finally able to breathe I feel exhausted, my heart still beating like crazy, the adrenaline still rushing through me.

"You okay?" Gabriel asks. In the dark I can't see his eyes, and I don't take any chance as I turn around to face him and hug him tightly, breathing in the mix of his aftershave lotion and shampoo and coffee and just _Gabriel._

Gabriel murmurs something in French as he hugs me. I feel his kiss on the skin of my neck, the way he nuzzles against me. I think he's saying that it's okay, as if I was Edge when he gets one of his nightmares. And I probably should be offended, but I can't be bothered by that, not right now.

I hate this nightmare, because it was almost true.

It's the day I killed Soul, when I killed Jessica, and in my dream... in my dream, it does happen. Gabriel dies in my arms. In my dreams, Arran takes a second more than he should before he's able to get the last bullet and then I get to live in a world where Gabriel is gone, where everything good and kind in my life turns to ashes forever. 

I guess it's the way of my brain to remind me that I need to be thankful, and I am. 

I murmur a 'sorry for waking you up' that makes him chuckle before he lets go a little. We're under a bramble dome outside our house. Edge must still be sleeping. The sky is starting to clear up, but it's still too early: fiveish, probably.

"Do you think you can go back to sleep?" Gabriel asks. 

I shake my head. "It's fine. You sleep. I'll start breakfast."

Gabriel puts his hand on my face and I feel the metal of my - his... our? - ring on my face as he moves in to kiss me softly. And I'm so relieved that it was just a dream, that I can wake up from that nigtmare and still have this. A small cabin near a forest, with a river nearby, our son sleeping calmly inside the cabin, and Gabriel by my side. 

I almost lost him. I almost lost all of this.

"Pancakes for breakfast?" he asks and I laugh a little. 

"You're going to get fat," I tease. I feel him shrug more than see it. 

"You'll love me anyway," he says with a smile before he moves to lay down again.

When I go out of our den, I pause to look inside the window to make sure that Edge is alright. He was born in prison, where Annalise still is, and the most obvious person for him to go was his father. He's three years old and he looks like me, except his eyes are a dark metal grey and he's a happy little kid who loves Gabriel the most. He doesn't have nightmares, not like mine, and he won't ever, ever get experimented like I did. With Gabriel's help, Edge writes a letter weekly to Annalise, sends her drawings, because I am not going to keep my son from his mother. I still hate her, but I can keep that inside. For Edge's sake. 

I breathe in the damp scent of dew-wet grass and earth, get to see the amazing colors of a peach-violet-red sunrise start to clear up the sky and I think this must be that, I think, this calm I sometimes get, this sense of belonging, as if for the first time in my life, my skin fits.

I'm happy.


End file.
